18 FEBRUARY 1938, Page 11

UNTIL TIME RELENT

SLANDER and adulation, havoc, ease,

Hopes foundering, or the obliquity of stars, May spoil those brows That seemed all snow, confuse Man's partial vision, until Time relent, Give back the gaunt Imperishable figurehead, the saint And his bare cause, Rock innocent.

Such alien woes Some wear like a sea-mist ; yet fine with scars, Lucid and reasonable our coast shall come, This forehead in eclipse light galleons home, End wars.

LILIAN BOWES LYON.